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City of Colorado Springs celebrates successful first City Nature Challenge

Thu, 05/09/2019 - 12:28pm

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COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The City of Colorado Springs ranked second amongst Colorado cities participating in the 2019 global urban biodiversity event called the City Nature Challenge. Colorado Springs ranked #57 overall out of 159 cities with 3,812 observations and 742 species documented. Denver/Boulder came in ahead of Colorado Springs, while our city topped Fort Collins and Vail.

The City’s Parks, Recreation and Cultural Services Department encouraged people to take pictures of wildlife, plants and fungi and share their observations using the iNaturalist app during the period of April 26-29. Scientists can use the collected pools of data to understand and conserve urban wildlife.

“One of our participants took a photo of a rare bug species and was recognized by City Nature Challenge organizers,” said local organizer Kim King. “We’re looking forward to next year and hope to provide even more observations during this global gathering event.”

Cape Town, South Africa ranked #1 with 53,763 observations. For the complete list of rankings, visit www.CityNatureChallenge.org. The City Nature Challenge is an international celebration of urban biodiversity, where cities compete to see who can make the most observations of nature, find the most species and get the most people involved. It was started in 2016 by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and San Francisco’s California Academy of Sciences.